


after this life I'll find you in the next

by obsessive-fics (xoPrincessKayxo)



Series: PFF Bingo 2018 [4]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Implied Period Typical Homophobia, M/M, not technically major character death but impending character death?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 14:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16409915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoPrincessKayxo/pseuds/obsessive-fics
Summary: As Phil loses Dan in one life, he finds him in another





	after this life I'll find you in the next

**Author's Note:**

> This was written to fill the "reincarnation" square on my fic fest bingo card
> 
> Title from finding you by Kesha

_ “I need you to think. About what you’ll do if I don’t make it,” he says, looking up from his hospital bed. He’s been looking worse and worse, but Phil pretends not to notice. If he doesn’t notice it, then it’s not true, and he’s not going to lose the most important person in his life.  _

_ “I’m not going to think about that, because you’re going to make it,” Phil says stubbornly. They have plans. Running away just the two of them, a house in the countryside where no one can judge or hurt them. “We’re gonna get a dog, remember?”  _

_ “I don’t want you to wait for me. Being here everyday, watching me fade away. It’s not fair to you.”  _

_ “You can’t decide what’s fair to me. I’m not just gonna leave you here.” All Phil wanted to do was crawl into the hospital bed and hold him until the nurses had to physically drag him away. But that wasn’t possible. It was a miracle they’d made it this long without anyone finding out, and he wasn’t going to jeopardize it now, when it was the most important for them to stay together. _

_ “You have to. For me, please don’t wait around.” _

_ “I’d wait forever for you, you know that.”  _

Phil woke up confused and sad, the way he always did when he had these dreams. He was always in a hospital, at someone’s bedside, and they were always two seconds away from death. In some of his dreams, he was sitting in a waiting room, and he always felt anxious even though he didn’t know why. He gathered from the way all the doctors and nurses were dressed that it must have been the 1940s, and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he was dressed the same way too. 

“Hey! You’re gonna be late for work! Again,” PJ called, knocking on Phil’s door, and startling him fully awake. They’d been working at their university’s bookstore for the last two years, and with how often they were late, it was a miracle they hadn’t been fired. 

“I’m up!” Phil called back, and then rushed to get ready for work. 

“Sorry. I was having that dream again,” Phil told PJ as they walked up to the bookstore in the center of campus. 

“The one about your dying husband in the 40s?” PJ asked blowing into his coffee. 

“I don’t know if he’s my husband. I don’t know who he is, or who I am, really. I just know that the idea of being away from him hurts,” Phil explained, and PJ got a really pensive look on his face. 

“You know, sometimes I dream that I’m one of the queen’s corgis,” he said after a minute, and Phil laughed and shook his head. 

“Of course you do.” 

Phil and PJ had to part ways since they worked in different departments. PJ got to stay downstairs in fiction, and Phil had to be upstairs with the textbooks, helping bored students find their rentals. Phil had tried to get switched into literally any other department but his boss wouldn’t let up. 

“Excuse me, do you know where I can find  _ Fundamentals of Law _ ?” a voice asked. So it began. Phil looked up from the counter, and almost spit out his coffee. It was the guy from his dreams. He looked different, healthier, younger, but it was definitely him. The same wavy hair, the same deep brown eyes. Looking into those eyes felt almost as easy and familiar as breathing.

“Uh, I can ask someone else-” the guy started to say, and Phil finally managed to find his voice.

“I’m sorry, I just… I feel like I know you. Is that weird?” he explained, and the guy looked like he’d rather be anywhere but there. 

“Yes… So, the book?” he asked again, and Phil nodded. 

“Right, yeah, sorry- Follow me,” he said quickly, leading the guy towards the law section. 

“I’m Phil, by the way.”

“I know,” the guy said, and Phil just nearly avoided walking into a bookshelf. He would’ve if the guy hadn’t tugged on his arm at the last minute. 

“You do?” 

“It’s on your nametag.” 

“...Oh. Right.” 

“I’m Dan,” he told him, and it felt good to put a name to the face Phil saw so often.

“Nice to meet you,” Phil replied, because  _ I dream of you leaving me, and it hurts so bad I still feel it in the morning  _ was probably a really creepy thing to say to a stranger. 

“You’re kinda weird, you know that?” Dan asked, and Phil scanned the shelf for his textbook. 

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Phil replied shrugging, and Dan laughed.

“So, was that a line?” he asked after Phil pulled the book off the shelf.

“What?” 

“You know, the whole ‘I feel like I know you’ thing,” Dan explained taking it. 

“Oh! Oh, that- I wasn’t. I mean you’re- but I…” he rambled completely incoherently, and Dan laughed. 

“It’s okay. I wouldn’t have minded.” 

“Oh,” was all Phil could think to say. He could feel his entire face heating up.

“I’d better go, I’m already late. Will you ring this up for me?” Dan asked, and Phil nodded. 

“Yeah, of course. This way.” 

The whole time he was ringing Dan up, Phil was trying to think of a way to ask to see him again without sounding creepy. It’s not like he could just come out and explain the dream thing, Dan would think he was insane. Eventually he came up short, and he handed Dan his receipt, completely defeated. 

Phil was too embarrassed about the whole interaction to even mention it to PJ. He went about his day as he always did, but that night, when he went to sleep, something was different. 

_ The nurses are all giving him sad looks. Phil feels like some of them know more than they’re letting on, but mercifully no one comments. They’re nearing the end now, he can tell. But a promise is a promise, and he’s not gonna leave now. He walks into the room carrying a teddy bear he’d picked up from the gift shop on impulse. It’ll be nice for him to have something to hold.  _

_ “Phil?” Dan asks, looking at him confused, and it’s clear this is no longer the person he’s been dreaming about. “Why am I in the hospital? And why are you dressed like Captain America?”  _

_ “Well,” Phil says sitting next to the bed, “it’s kind of a long story.”  _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know if you enjoyed
> 
> [Reblog on tumblr](https://obsessive-fics.tumblr.com/post/179428378121/title-after-this-life-ill-find-you-in-the-next)


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